“Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an unperson.”

The urge to defend our Galtian overlords

Lately, on multiple fronts, I’ve witnessed what I would describe as a strong tendency towards defending our richest and most powerful members of society, even when those doing the defending are comparatively weak and powerless. One of the more recent examples concerns Albert Pujols, baseball’s best player.

Pujols and the Cardinals management were unable to come to a contract deal before this season began. The issue is that Pujols wants some combination of contracted years or dollars per year that the team hasn’t wanted to give him. And it’s striking when reading the comments at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or in looking at a few of their polls, that the St. Louis public seems to have sided strongly with owner Bill Dewitt. Pujols is routinely called greedy and selfish, and people say we should let him walk (check out Red Sox-Ruth, Pirates-Bonds, and Cavs-James… that usually doesn’t work out well).

But Bill Dewitt is the billionaire owner who raised ticket prices, raised concession prices, and got public financing to help build the new Busch Stadium. So why is there this urge to defend him over a player seeking much less compensation and who is clearly the best player in MLB? I get that being paid millions to hit a baseball is absurd, but everyone’s contract is absurd by that standard. And Pujols does it better than anyone else.

I expect this behavior from our media what it comes to their coverage of politicians. The types of media insiders who write columns for the NYT or Washington Post are themselves rich and powerful. They are likely to agree that $250,000 per year “is not rich.” Plus, they like to ingratiate themselves with those in power. But in the case of Pujols, it’s random Cards fans who post on online forums doing the defending, so it’s not just a media thing.

“If the negotiations impasse extends into the beginning of the season, you can bet that the media will take the owners’ side, that we’ll hear a lot of “I’d play 16 games for a million dollars, heck I’d do it for free”, and that they’ll use the term “replacement player” rather than “scab”.”